Katie does SF: kissing the mayor and cracking poop jokes

Soon-to-be CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric got something that her predecessor, Uncle Walter Cronkite could only dream about when she popped through San Francisco Monday to hype her Sept. 5 debut: A kiss on the cheek from a gushing San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom – who then confessed that CBS was his favorite newscast. The Commonwealth Club crowd “wooooed” when Newsom said that Couric once gave him her “home phone” number when she wanted him on the “Today” show a while back.

Thanks for the compliment, Couric responded, “But that wasn’t my home number.” Ouch.

Planted amidst a chorus of atta-girls about Couric becoming the first woman to solo anchor a major network newscast, the mayoral smooch and flirt seemed a bit of antiquated touch.

Since Couric dropped most of the real scoop about her new gig Sunday at the Television Critics Association boozefest, Monday was about raising cash for two NoCal cancer-related organizations. She’s been a major fundraiser since her husband died of cancer in 1998.

Benefits that she’s done along with her weeklong nationwide promo tour raised $500,000 for cancer-related causes. And the recipient of an on-air flashed her next-door-neighbor charm Monday by dropping some poop jokes: “My goal was not to start a movement,” she said. As the laughter rolled, she said, “I have a lot of bowel jokes up my sleeve.”

Would Uncle Walter crack a poop joke?

Maybe it’s a secret strategy designed to bring young people back to watching the network news. The average age of the evening news viewer: 60. “That why there are all the Doxidan ads,” Couric cracked. Worse: One in four young people can’t even name all four major networks, let alone anchors.

Couric’s solution: More transparency in the newscasts (her exec producer Rome Hartman said Monday that might mean cameras in the news meetings); simulcast the evening news on the radio for commuters and online for everybody else. And yes, she will blog. “But it won’t be ‘Deep Thoughts With Katie Couric,'” she promised.

While Couric pledged more transparency, her two-hour chat Monday at Teatro ZinZanni to find out what “real people” wanted from the evening news was closed to the press. The audience of 150 was a self-selecting crew chosen on the basis of how they filled out a two-page questionnaire.

Not much news there, anyways, according to our spy. Couric mostly listened. The bad news for her, our spy said: About 10 people told her that they wouldn’t watch any evening news program because TV news doesn’t challenge the official government line enough. Calling Uncle Walter!